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By Garrett Ohlmeyer Staff Writer
Posted Aug 1, 2017 at 10:15 PM
Updated Aug 1, 2017 at 10:15 PM

Much like at Lafourche’s meeting last week, Terrebonne residents overall supported the adaption plans presented to them Tuesday night.

After a parishwide meeting and multiple community meetings in Terrebonne over the past four months, Louisiana SAFE representatives returned to Houma to explain where the process stands.

“We always want to touch base with members of the community and with parishes, and ask the question, ‘Did we get this right?’” said Mathew Sanders, resilience policy and program administrator for the Louisiana Office of Community Development. “Does this reflect your values? Does this reflect what you want to see in the future as we consider what the future looks like?”

LA SAFE, or Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments, is designed to help six parishes, including Lafourche and Terrebonne, come up with plans to adapt to Louisiana’s changing landscape based on local values.

In the meeting at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center, state officials presented the vision they said residents in the communities had described in previous meetings.

Partially because little sediment now flows from the Atchafalaya River and the Mississippi River into Terrebonne Parish, it is one of Louisiana’s most threatened parishes.

Although the state’s 2017 Coastal Master Plan contains many projects that aim to build land and start reducing the effects of land loss, some communities, like Pointe-aux-Chenes and other southern communities, are seeing an increased risk of flooding and are being threatened by sea-level rise and an eroding coastline.